Process Improvement Simplified: A How-to-Book for Success in any Organization

By James B. King and Francis G. King

Process Improvement Simplified is written for leaders and managers of organizations or enterprises who:
Are struggling with their organization’s success
Are not satisfied with the current state
Are striving to be number one
Have heard about the negatives or positives of process improvement (PI) but have never implemented it

But PI is not a panacea; it takes leadership commitment and involvement, plus organizational behavior modification so that PI becomes a disciplined way of life. It entails hard work through dealing with nitty-gritty details.

PI is not just a problem-solving methodology or another quality control tool. In fact, it is not a quality improvement tool like statistical process control or Six Sigma. It is a systematic approach to focus, measure, and redesign a critical process of any organization in order to reduce waste and achieve breakthrough improvement for that process. In this approach, personnel from other functions within the organization will be involved to ensure that the needs of customers and suppliers of the process are correctly reflected and supported.

This is a how-to book with simple examples. A step-by-step method of implementing PI is presented using the example of running a restaurant business.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ASQ Quality Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9780873898805

James B. King

Rev. James B. King, C.S.C., religious superior of Holy Cross priests and brothers at Notre Dame, is a trustee and fellow of the University. As superior, Fr. King has ministerial responsibility for the nearly 80 Holy Cross religious at Notre Dame. Before his appointment to that position in 2010, he had served for seven years as rector of the Sorin College residence hall. A native of Chicago, Fr. King was graduated from Notre Dame in 1981, entered Moreau Seminary, and earned a master of divinity degree from the University in 1987. Ordained a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross the following year, he spent two years as an assistant rector and freshman seminar instructor at Notre Dame before leaving for the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a master’s degree in political science in 1992. He served for five years at the University of Portland as a history instructor, rector, assistant director in the alumni office and for one year as director of Portland’s foreign study program in Salzburg, Austria. He returned to Notre Dame in 1997 and served as director of vocations for the Indiana Province of Holy Cross from 1997 to 2005. Father King has also served as the associate director of the Holy Cross Mission Center, which supports the Congregation’s work overseas, and as the director of campus ministry at the University of Notre Dame. He also is the author of Known by Name: Inside the Halls of Notre Dame, an autobiographical account of his ministry to Notre Dame students.

Book preview

Process Improvement Simplified

Also available from ASQ Quality Press:

Business Process Improvement Toolbox, Second Edition

Bjørn Andersen

The Quality Toolbox, Second Edition

Nancy R. Tague

Mapping Work Processes, Second Edition

Bjørn Andersen, Tom Natland Fagerhaug, Bjørnar Henriksen, and Lars E. Onsøyen

The ASQ Quality Improvement Pocket Guide: Basic History, Concepts, Tools, and Relationships

Grace L. Duffy, editor

Performance Metrics: The Levers for Process Management

Duke Okes

The Executive Guide to Innovation: Turning Good Ideas into Great Results

Jane Keathley, Peter Merrill, Tracy Owens, Ian Meggarrey, and Kevin Posey

Outcomes, Performance, Structure (OPS): Three Keys to Organizational Excellence

Michael E. Gallery and Stephen C. Carey

The ASQ Pocket Guide for the Certified Six Sigma Black Belt

T. M. Kubiak

The ASQ Pocket Guide to Root Cause Analysis

Bjørn Andersen and Tom Natland Fagerhaug

The Quality Improvement Handbook, Second Edition

ASQ Quality Management Division and John E. Bauer, Grace L. Duffy, Russell T. Westcott, editors

Process Improvement Using Six Sigma: A DMAIC Guide

Rama Shankar

The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook, Fourth Edition

Russell T. Westcott, editor

To request a complimentary catalog of ASQ Quality Press publications, call 800-248-1946, or visit our website at www.asq.org/quality-press.

Process Improvement Simplified

A How-To Book for Success in Any Organization

James B. King, Francis G. King, and Michael W. R. Davis

Under the Guidance of John Manoogian, Gene Nelson, Ray Smock, and Larry Sullivan

ASQ Quality Press

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203

© 2014 by ASQ

All rights reserved. Published 2014

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cataloging in Publication Control Number: 2014000230

ISBN 978-0-87389-883-6

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Acquisitions Editor: Matt T. Meinholz

Managing Editor: Paul Daniel O’Mara

Production Administrator: Randall Benson

ASQ Mission: The American Society for Quality advances individual, organizational, and community excellence worldwide through learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange.

Attention Bookstores, Wholesalers, Schools, and Corporations: ASQ Quality Press books, video, audio, and software are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchases for business, educational, or instructional use. For information, please contact ASQ Quality Press at 800-248-1946, or write to ASQ Quality Press, P.O. Box 3005, Milwaukee, WI 53201-3005.

To place orders or to request ASQ membership information, call 800-248-1946. Visit our website at http://www.asq.org/quality-press.

40984.png

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Troubled Processes in Real Life

Airport Screening

State and Local Governments

Small Businesses

Big Business

Professional

Institutional

Service

Chapter Summary

Chapter 3: Yield and Throughput

Example of the Shirt: Learning About Yield

Successive Outputs from Machines

Supplementing Experience with Data

What Does Experience Plus Data Tell Us?

Example of the Breakfast: Learning About Throughput

Measurements and Their Analysis Are Done Methodically with Discipline

Advantages and Disadvantages of Measuring and Analyzing a Process

Chapter Summary

Chapter 4: Who Is the Customer?

Can a Dryer Be a customer?

Process Boundaries

Suppliers and Customers of the Process

The Example of the Restaurant: Learning About Unhappy Customers

Fear As a Motivator: Making a Decision on Implementing PI

Chapter Summary

Chapter 5: How to Begin Process Improvement

Pains and Opportunities in PI

Turning PI Opportunities into Goals

Critical Process and Process Boundaries

Define the Boundaries of the Critical Process

Who Is Going to Do the Work?

Identify Management Roles and Form PI Team

Develop the First 90-Day Work Plan

Chapter Summary

Chapter 6: The Six Phases of PI

Definition of Process Improvement

The Six Phases of Process Improvement

Phase 1. Identify the Critical Process

Phase 2. Measure Process

Phase 3. Redesign Process

Phase 4. Test Redesigned Process

Phase 5. Institutionalize Redesigned Process

Phase 6. Continuous Improvement

Chapter 7: Mapping the Process

Overview of the Business—Level I Process Maps

Specific Level I Process Maps

Mapping the Kitchen Process

Level II Process Maps

Chapter Summary

Chapter 8: Voice of the Customer

Pains of the External Customers

Getting the Voice of the Customer

Performing the Gap Analysis

Difficulties in Obtaining the Voice of the External Customer

Pains of Internal Customers

Gathering Existing Data to Confirm the Pains

Chapter Summary

Chapter 9: Measuring the Process

Why Measure the Process?

Measurement of Results Does Not Work

Systemic Issues of the Process

What to Measure

Measuring Throughput and Yield

Measurement Plan

Throughput and Yield Results

Measuring the Other Current Conditions

Determine Process Cost

Compile Data

Chapter Summary

Chapter 10: Redesign, Test, and Institutionalize Phases

Phase 3: Redesign Process

Analysis

Formulating an Ideal State

Formulating a To-Be State

Phase 4: Test Redesigned Process

Enabling Management Buy-In

Allow for Gradual Achievement of Goals in the Work Plan

Testing the Redesigned Process

Phase 5: Institutionalize The Redesigned Process

Chapter Summary

Chapter 11: Real-World Throughput and Yield

Medical Examples

Pharmacies

Medical Clinic

Medical Misdiagnosis

Public Service Examples

Road Paving

Postal Delivery

Renewal of Driver’s License and License Plates

Professional Services

Public Relations

Patent Applications

Group Dynamics

Heavy Industries

Shipbuilding

Military

Maintenance and Repair of Naval Vessels

Nonprofit Organizations—Church with School

Chapter Summary

Chapter 12: PI Tools and Measures

Problem-Specific Tools of PI

Generic PI Tools

PI Relationship to Dr. Deming’s PDCA Cycle

Chapter Summary

Chapter 13: Case Histories of PI Successes

Case History 1: A Family-Owned Fabric Manufacturer

Identify

Measure

Redesign

Test

Institutionalize

Case History 2: A Distributor’s Toll-Free Customer Service Telephone Center

Identify

Measure

Redesign

Test

Institutionalize

Case History 3: Key Component Manufacturer within a Large Multinational Automotive Corporation

Identify

Measure

Redesign

Test

Institutionalize

Case History 4: Tablet Production by a Large Pharmaceutical Company

Chapter Summary

Chapter 14: Epilogue

What Is a Process?

What Is Process Improvement?

PI Can Be Applied Universally

What Does It Take to Make PI Successful?

Difference from Other Books

We Are Doing It

Why We Wrote the Book

Appendix A: Are You Doing PI? (Ten Questions)

Appendix B: Medical Clinic

Appendix C: Process Capability (Cpk)

Glossary

Suggested Reading

About the Authors

About the Advisors

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 3.1 Process for making pancakes.

Table 3.1 Throughput time for making four pancakes.

Figure 4.1 Process boundaries.

Figure 4.2 Internal and external suppliers and customers.

Figure 5.1 Level I map —the restaurant process from the customer’s perspective.

Figure 5.2 Sample of a first 90-day work plan.

Figure 6.1 The six phases of process improvement.

Figure 7.1 Level I map—the restaurant process from the customer’s perspective.

Figure 7.2 Process mapping symbols.

Figure 7.3 Level I map—check preparation process from the waiter’s point of view.

Figure 7.4 Level I map of the kitchen process—task-oriented point of view.

Figure 7.5 Level II map—Chef C’s process for cleaning cookware.

Table 8.1 Gap analysis table for the House of Beef.

Table 9.1 Gap analysis table for the House of Beef.

Figure 9.1 Level I map of the kitchen process with measured throughput times.

Table 9.2 Gap analysis of external customer requirements.

Table 10.1 Closure of gaps with external customer requirements.

Figure 11.1 Level I—map 1—the clinic process.

Figure 11.2 Level I—map 2—the clinic process with improved throughput.

Figure 12.1 First-run yield.

Figure 12.2 Overall first-run yield.

Figure 12.3 Equipment effectiveness.

Figure 12.4 Production distribution with engineering specifications.

Figure 12.5 Process not capable and not meeting specifications.

Figure 12.6 Process is capable and meeting specifications.

Figure 12.7 Process is capable but not meeting specifications.

Figure 12.8 Deming’s PDCA cycle.

Figure 13.1 Level I map of purchase to pay process.

Figure B.1 Level I—map 1—the clinic process.

Figure B.2 Level I—map 2—the clinic process with improved throughput.

Table B.1 Scheduling method for appointments at the clinic.

Figure C.1 Normal distribution.

Figure C.2 Distribution of part length within specification limits.

Figure C.3 Distribution of a left-handed bowler.

Figure C.4 Distribution of a right-handed bowler.

Figure C.5 Left-handed bowler with off-center distribution.

Preface

Process Improvement Simplified is written for leaders and managers of organizations or enterprises who:

• Are struggling with their organization’s success

• Are not satisfied with the current state

• Are striving to be number one

• Have heard about the negatives or positives of PI but have never implemented it

But PI is not a panacea; it takes leadership commitment and involvement, plus organizational behavior modification so that PI becomes a disciplined way of life. It entails hard work through dealing with nitty-gritty details.

PI is not just a problem-solving methodology or another quality control tool. In fact, it is not a quality improvement tool like statistical process control or Six Sigma. PI is a systematic approach to focus, measure, and redesign a critical process of any organization in order to reduce waste and achieve breakthrough improvement for that process. In this approach, personnel from other functions within the organization will be involved to ensure that the needs of customers and suppliers of the process are correctly reflected and supported.

Most other books on PI cite examples from manufacturing or a specific industry. However, manufacturing or industrial examples are usually technical and potentially too complex for people to easily grasp the PI principles that are being presented. This PI book is a how-to book with simple examples. A step-by-step method of implementing PI is presented using the example of running a restaurant business. The book also includes numerous examples where PI can be used—big and small businesses, educational and professional organizations, public and private entities, and commercial and nonprofit enterprises.

This book can also be used as a text in any college or university to educate students on how to implement PI. The restaurant example provides a means of bringing reality to the classroom. Students can take field trips to restaurants to view their processes firsthand and videotape them for classroom discussions; homework assignments can be based on real-life restaurant processes. The inclusion of examples from professions and businesses other than those within the manufacturing industry will also encourage the student to observe, critique, and bring to practice their learning on PI by mentally improving processes that they encounter in their daily lives at their educational facilities, doctors’ offices, grocery stores, and so on.

This book focuses on only the PI methodology, without discussing other tools used to enhance quality. We firmly believe that improvement of process measures will lead to improvement in measures of business results such as cost, revenue, quality, timeliness, delivery, and others. In particular, this book emphasizes the relationship of process improvements to dollars. The PI methodology explained in this book can be applied in business, nonprofit, or other organizations.

Because this is a how-to book, it is also for people who say, I am already doing PI. The book will either reaffirm that you are indeed doing it or perhaps challenge you to improve what you are doing.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our guidance advisors for their time and contributions. Special thanks go to our spouses for their encouragement, patience, and endurance. Above all, we want to thank the gifts from our Creator, without which none of this would be possible.

Chapter 1: Introduction

We Americans are a complacent bunch. We sit in our armchairs watching TV or reading accounts about the gradual erosion of our economy—and therefore our lives—when we have in our heads and hands the wherewithal to do something about it.

We are here to tell you how Process Improvement Simplified: A How-To Book for Success in Any Organization can help stop that erosion. But be forewarned: it is hard work—it requires discipline and getting into the nitty-gritty details, and is dependent on senior management leadership, commitment, and involvement.

So, what is this magical prescription, this step-by-step method? How can it, for example, overcome the loss of our traditional manufacturing base to low-cost competitors? Can it solve the challenge of ever increasing cost to all enterprises—large and small, private and public, professional, commercial, and nonprofit?

Think about our state and municipal government administrators caught between skyrocketing personnel costs for medical care and pensions, and rightful citizen pushback against paying higher taxes and declining services.

Think about our Congress and Administration, seemingly paralyzed and unable to chart a course of public policy between promises for a better life and the reality of crushing debt measured against the growing unwillingness of the public to pay for those promises.

Think about the giant private enterprises—the ones usually labeled Big _____ by politicians, trial lawyers, pundits, and the like (you pick: Oil, Pharma, Ag, and others)—whose managers must make job-killing decisions to cease or outsource production in the face of low-wage, sometimes government-subsidized foreign competition.

Think about hospital administrators struggling to keep their treasured community health resources from closing due to government-mandated reduced revenues while dealing with higher personnel and equipment costs.

Think of the school board, trapped between the revenue loss from declining (or underperforming) student bodies and higher costs for everything and every person needed to educate them.

Think of the university president, pressured by students, parents, alumni, or the state legislature to reduce tuition and provide ever-superior higher education in the face of increasing costs.

Think of that most common of small businesses, the restaurant, where the chef/owner has to streamline operations to survive against a similar competitor down the street.

Think of a valued physician or lawyer or auto shop owner who simply decides to retire, thus ending the struggle with the pressures of surviving the old way.

Think of the medical profession and other industries that need to comply with ever-changing government regulations.

Think of these as not just a national issue but as a global one.

Think Process Improvement Simplified.

What is this magical potion, this PI? Can it be the ancient mathematical discovery of pi (3.14159 . . .) that, multiplied by the diameter of a circle, yields the circumference of the circle? No. Is it the abbreviation for private investigator found in popular detective fiction? No again, although there is a lot of investigation involved in accomplishing PI.

PI stands for—here you must lower your resistance to stopper words—process improvement. In reverse